On the Friday when the late Palestinian Authority chairman, Yasser Arafat, was buried in the courtyard of the Muqataa in Ramallah, the media reported that because of the fear of riots, the Israeli government had decided to close the Temple Mount mosques to residents of the Occupied Territories. From this prohibition it could have been understood that on an ordinary holiday, masses of Arabs from Ramallah and from Hebron are allowed to come to Jerusalem to pray at the holy site.

The listener will wonder: If the gates of Jerusalem are regularly opened to the residents of the territories, what are those ugly separation fences that surround East Jerusalem? Indeed, if the capital is wide open, why do the Arabs living in the suburb of Abu Dis need the permission of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to vote for a Palestinian Authority president?

It was probably convenient for Sharon to have Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom depict Sharon's granting of permission to the residents of Anata to participate in the Palestinian Authority elections as a danger to Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. The world will see how generous Sharon is. In the eyes of the international community not only is the prime minister suffering for his plan to separate from one-and-a-half million Gazans, and from four settlements in the northern West Bank stuck like a bone in the throat of Israel's armed forces. For the sake of Middle Eastern democracy, Sharon is making it seem that he is even willing to undermine the holy of holies - Israeli sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem.

Arafat did not have the privilege of being buried in Jerusalem. When his successor, who will probably be Mahmoud Abbas, speaks of "Arafat's heritage," he is not referring to permission for Jerusalem's Arabs to vote in Abu Dis. Abbas' style differs from that of the late Arafat. He will not utter pearls of wisdom such as "one million martyrs in Jerusalem." However, a one-day unification of East Jerusalem and the West Bank for the election will not satisfy even one-eighth of the appetite of the Palestinian leadership that will be elected on January 9, 2005, no matter how pragmatic this leadership may be. A Palestinian leader who surrenders Palestinian interests in Jerusalem will not last long - which is unfortunate, politically speaking.

A short tour of East Jerusalem, along the concrete walls, reveals that when the myths and the hollow slogans are sifted out, Israeli and Palestinian interests are not so far apart. What interest does Israel have in ruling over 230,000 Palestinians, most of whom are separated only by an arbitrary municipal boundary (in 1967, East Jerusalem was "expanded" from 6 to 17 square kilometers) from their brethren on the other side of the wall? Of the latter, 55,000 live outside the route of the fence, and another 40,000 are "Jerusalemites" with blue Israeli identification cards who also live outside the municipal boundary. What interest do Israeli citizens have in paying hundreds of millions of shekels (and having done so for over 37 years) for national insurance for families who have no connection at all with Israeli identity?

The four reasons why Israel should disengage from East Jerusalem are surprisingly similar to its reasons for disengaging from the Gaza Strip:

Occupation: Sharon's diagnosis regarding the residents of Gaza and the northern West Bank, who, he believes, are living under foreign occupation that cannot continue forever, is also true of the residents of East Jerusalem.

Security: Imposing the artificial separation of Jerusalem Arabs from a Palestinian state-in-the-making, including centers of social services, education and culture, is liable to increase the motivation of the young Arab inhabitants of East Jerusalem to harm Israel.

Demography: According to the forecast of the Jerusalem demographer Sergio Della Pergola, in 2020 the number of Arabs in Jerusalem will reach 358,000, and the percentage of the Israeli population in the city will decline to 62 percent (as compared to 84 percent in the peak year of 1972).

Economy: In order for Israel to change the term "united Jerusalem" from a slogan into reality, it will be necessary to raise the poverty line in East Jerusalem from the level at which it is in the Gaza Strip, and to bring it closer to the poverty line in Israel, at the least. The budgets required for that will lead to a lengthening of the lines at the soup kitchens on the western side of the poorest city in Israel.

What does Israel really gain from "sovereignty" over a "united" Jerusalem? For the first time in many years, even the candidates for the U.S. presidency stopped promising to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, a neglected capital that is not recognized as such even by Israel's best friend, and that is now being abandoned by its best sons.